Movie ticket sales for October are already being recorded as some of the lowest in recent years. And who’s to blame according to the film industry? Why, Master Chief of course. Several film executives and researchers are convinced that many movie-goers stayed home playing the game instead of venturing out to the theater.

“The audience on this game is the 18-to-34 demographic, similar to what you’d see in cinemas,” said Mike Hickey, an analyst at Janco Partners, a Denver research firm, adding that “this could last for several weeks.”

As their prime example, they cite the newest Ben Stiller comedy, The Heartbreak Kid, which cost $60 million and only collected $14 million on its opening weekend. What they don’t mention though is how that same weekend another film, The Game Plan, starring The Rock, collected $2 million more than Heartbreak Kid, even though it had been out for a week. Mark Weinstock, marketing chief at Screen Gems, who released the newest Resident Evil movie, has noted that mediocre reviews and an R rating could have hurt the movie’s sales just as much as Halo.

Honestly, this whole thing isn’t all that surprising to me. Every weekend, me and my friends look at what’s out in theaters to see if there’s anything that worth paying $8 to see. For the past month, the answer has been a resounding, “No,” and then we usually rent an old movie or, yep, play video games. My point is, if people actually want to go to the theater, but can’t find anything worth seeing, I wouldn’t completely fault a video game for poor ticket sales. Let this be a lesson to you, film execs: don’t give Ben Stiller $60 million to make a movie. Just don’t do it.

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